New team to challenge Megawati

Former Indonesian general Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has edged ahead in the race to become the country's next president by teaming up with a running mate from the Golkar Party of former president Soeharto.

Welfare Minister Jusuf Kalla announced yesterday that he had withdrawn from tomorrow's Golkar convention to run as vice-presidential candidate to Mr Yudhoyono in the July elections.

The chairman of Mr Yudhoyono's fledgling Democrat Party, Budhisantoso, had foreshadowed the announcement earlier after days of speculation. "The party has already decided he will be the vice-president," Associated Press reported him saying.

"It's good news for us. He's the right person to be vice-president. He's relatively clean and gets along well with Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono."

Mr Yudhoyono said at the weekend that he and his new running mate "have the same commitment and ideas on how to establish a more effective government that can settle problems facing the country in the next five years.

"He (Mr Kalla) certainly has agreed and wants to partner with me," Mr Yudhoyono told official news agency Antara. Although he was sacked for corruption by former president Abdurrahman Wahid, Mr Kalla is more highly regarded than most of the country's politicians and helped negotiate the Malino accords that ended the Muslim and Christian violence in the Maluku Islands in eastern Indonesia.

Mr Yudhoyono's tiny Democrat Party won a remarkable 7 per cent of the vote in the legislative elections this month thanks to the surging popularity of its leader, widely regarded as the cleanest of the presidential candidates. That result was well above the 5 per cent minimum the party needs to nominate Mr Yudhoyono as a presidential candidate.

Opinion polls show the former security minister is the only candidate whose support is growing. A poll published on Friday by Indonesian non-government group Soegeng Sarjadi Syndicated said Mr Yudhoyono, with 44 per cent support, was more than twice as popular as President Megawati Soekarnoputri with 21 per cent.

Mrs Megawati's Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle was routed in the legislative elections on April 5, losing almost half its supporters, many of whom voted for Mr Yudhoyono in an apparent protest at the level of corruption in the big parties.

And in a question about who would be the best vice-presidential candidate, Mr Kalla came top with 21 per cent while Hamzah Haz, the current Vice-President and possible running mate for Mrs Megawati, received 5 per cent support.

Sukardi Rinakit from the survey group said the results showed a Yudhoyono/Kalla team was preferred.

Mr Kalla, a business tycoon from South Sulawesi province, is regarded by many observers as Golkar's most popular candidate. His decision to pull out of the convention and join Mr Yudhoyono seems certain to split the Golkar vote in the July poll.

Golkar delegates at tomorrow's convention must now select the party's presidential nominee from five remaining candidates, none of whom seems a real threat to Mr Yudhoyono.

Party chairman Akbar Tandjung remains favourite, despite his reputation for corruption after his conviction for stealing money meant for the poor. A Supreme Court decision clearing him this year has done little to repair the damage he has suffered.

His main rival is the former head of Indonesia's armed forces, General Wiranto, who is saddled with an indictment by United Nations prosecutors who have accused him of human rights abuses at the time of the East Timor vote for independence.